South Africa: Olympic-Class Can Kicking and the Future of the ANC

analysis

In the aftermath of the ANC's non-announcement that it has decided not to remove President Jacob Zuma from the Union Buildings, several questions remain. It is probably trite to mention that "the ANC will never be the same", or that "Zuma is weaker than ever before". Those are undeniable truths. But two real issues now need to be examined. The first is a perennial political thing: what happens now? The second is tied to it. Why, if he and the forces aligned with him knew that they were going to lose in the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC), did Derek Hanekom bring his resolution at this point? By STEPHEN GROOTES.

There can be no doubt that Derek Hanekom is a man of principle. He and his wife joined the ANC after they, as white farmers, were forced off the farm they were renting. They went to Mozambique, and became an integral part of the party. Such is Hanekom's standing in the ANC and his place in its history that he testified, as an Afrikaans member of the ANC, in Julius Malema's "Dubula Ibhunu hate speech trial", and explained how the song, translated as "shoot the boer", is not directed at...

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